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♦ ♦ ♦ 



4 ♦ ♦ 


ON the 


Marble^ Slate and Granite 


Indtistries of Vermont^ 


BY 


GEORGE H. PERKINS, Ph. D. 
State Geologist. 


I 


.tJm 


' ' ' RUTLAND: 

THE TUTTLE COMPANY, OFFICIAL PRINTERS, 

1S9S. . 
































, ^ 






...REPORT... 


ON THE 


Marble, Slate and Granite 


Industries of Vermont^ 


BY 


GEORGE H. PERKINS, Ph. D., 

t 

State Geologist* 


RUTLAND: 

THE TUTTLE COMPANY, OFFICIAL PRINTERS, 

1S9S. 








% 


29035 


oFcoSsy 

1899 






• Office of State Geologist, 
Buklingtox, Vt., October 15, 1898. 

lo Hts hxccllciicy, Josiah Grouty Governor : 

Sir: —In accordance with the requirement of Section 
2, Act No. T, 1890, I herewith present my Report on the 
quarrying industries of Vermont. By your kind permis¬ 
sion I have been allowed to delay publication somewhat 
beyond the required time on account of my very recent 
appointment. It is needless to call attention to the haste 
with which the field work, preparatory to the Report, as 
well as the writing of the manuscript, have been done. 

Only about six weeks were available for both, and I have 
endeavored to make the most of this brief period. 

Very respectfully. 


GEORGE H. PERKINS. 




REPORT. 


Early last summer the State Geologist, Rev. G. W. 
Perry, on aeeount of continued and serious illness, re¬ 
signed, and on the seventh of September I received, from 
Governor Grout, my appointment to the office. I at once 
proceeded to carry out, as far as possible, the require¬ 
ments of the laws defining the duties of State Geologist, 
especially those of Sec. 1, of Act No. 7, of the session of 
1896, viz. : The State Geologist shall, during the next 

two years, personally inspect the mines and quarries now 
in operation within the State; also deposits of minerals 
of economic value, which have not been opened or devel¬ 
oped;” as well as the following sections of the same act. 
ObvioUvSly it was not at all possible to comply fully with 
the requirements of the above act within the time remain¬ 
ing before the session of the General Assembly, to which 
a Report was to be submitted. Some limitation being thus 
absolutely necessary, I concluded to confine my investiga¬ 
tions and field work to the three greatest of our mineral in¬ 
dustries, marble, slate and granite, and after several weeks 
of very active fieldwork, I found that it was not practicable 
to visit all of those quarries from which these materials 
were obtained. Most regretfully were quarries of soap¬ 
stone and talc, mines of copper, beds of clay, ochre, lig¬ 
nite, iron ore, manganese, and other interesting minerals 
\/holly ignored. All of these are well deserving of a full 
Report, but this is out of the question at present. 

It hoped that the present Legislature will make such 
appropriations for the work of the State Geologist as will 
make a continuance of the work begun in this Report 



BIENNIAL REPORT OE THE 


(i 

possible. This publication is not to be regarded as any¬ 
thing more than preliminary to a much fuller report, of 
more complete investigation of the mineral resources of 
our State, which investigations can be made, and a Report 
which would be of great value, prepared at a very mod¬ 
erate cost, during the next two years. It is neither to the 
credit nor advantage of Vermont that no such report ex¬ 
ists, and that full, accurate and scientific information 
respecting the quarries, mines and rock formations of 
our State is nowhere to be found. The large Report on 
the Geology of Vermont, in two quarto volumes, pub¬ 
lished in 1861, contains much valuable matter, and much 
that is not very valuable, but it does not give such infor¬ 
mation as any one who is seeking to make profitable in¬ 
vestments would require. And during the thirty-seven 
years that have passed since that Report was issued, no 
Geological Report has been authorized or published by 
the State until the Act above referred to, passed by the 
Legislature of 1806. 

As has been stated, the illness of Mr. Perry, who had 
collected considerable material for the purpose of 
preparing a Report, prevented him from accomplishing 
his purpose. Having no access to this material, the 
writer could only attempt to carry out the intent of the act 
as well as possible in the very few weeks at his disposal. 
During the month of September I visited and examined 
about seventy-five quarries, but none of them received the 
careful attention which should have been given to them, 
and it is with some reluctance that I present a Report 
which necessarily falls far below what it might have been 
had a few months more been available. On this account 
it is important that this reconnoisance, for it has been 
little more, may be followed by a thoroughly carried- 
out campaign during the next two years. vSuch a geolog¬ 
ical study of our mineral resources, followed by a full 
and well illustrated Report, would not only be inter¬ 
esting to those already interested in our quarries and 
mines, but it should awaken interest in many quarters 






STATE GEOLOGIST. 


now indifferent through lack of information, and, there¬ 
fore, should do something to increase the resources and 
wealth of Vermont. 

Vermonters should realize that there is no State in 
the Union which has, in proportion to area and popula¬ 
tion, so great wealth and resources in beds of useful 
rocks. If properly developed during the next ten years, 
the marble, slate and granite industries of Vermont 
will surpass those of other States. Vermont is known 
far and wide as an agricultural State, but we can scarcely 
hope to remain in the front rank in this respect. Our 
manufactures are varied and important, but we cannot 
rival manv another State in these industries. When, 
however, it comes to the possession of vast beds of 
marble, slate and granite, and the production of stone 
from these deposits, our future outlook is most encour¬ 
aging. The existence of such riches being assured, 
the first rational step toward developing and utiliz¬ 
ing them is that which leads to a knowledge of what 
we have and to giving others, those outside the State, 
who have needed capital, some knowledge of what there 
is awaiting their invCvStments. I do not think that there 
is a State in the Union which has greater need of a geo¬ 
logical survey, or which would receive greater benefits 
from it than our own. Such a survey, if properly con¬ 
ducted, is really taking an inventory, an account of stock, 
of the natural resources of the region examined, and I 
believe that such surveys have almost always been of very 
great benefit to the State carrying them on, benefit far 
beyond all cost to the State. Vermont is behind most 
States in investments in scientific work, and she has suf¬ 
fered accordingly. Where such investment has not borne 
abundant fruit, the reason has been that scientific work 
has been entrusted to unscientific workmen, instead of be- 
ing given to those properly prepared for it. There 
is very much work to be done in \ ermont in the way of 
geological investigation. Besides the quarries and mines, 
there are most interesting beds of fossiliferous rocks 



IJIKXNIAL REPORT OF THE 


S 


along the shores of Lake Champlain, and equally interest- 
inof masses of crystalline and metamorphic rocks in the 
Green [Mountains and from them on to the Connecticut 
river, which presents many problems to the scientific in¬ 
vestigator, and which should receivm far more thorough 
study than has hitherto been given to them. Aside from 
the very valuable, but limited, studies of President Brai- 
nerd'and Professor Seely, on the Marble Border of Ver¬ 
mont, and on the Calciferous and Chazy beds of the 
Champlain V^alley, of Mr. Walcott on the Cambrian beds, 
of Mr. T. N. Dale on portions of Rutland and Bennington 
counties, of Mr. S. P. Baldwin and Dr. C. H. Richardson on 
the] Pleistocene of the Champlain Valley, of Dr. Richardson 
on Washington county, and the older but all-important 
work of Rev. A. Wing on the Rutland marbles, little has 
ever been done to really elucidate the many difficult prob¬ 
lems which V^ermont geology presents. It is no dispar¬ 
agement of the above named writers on Vermont geology 
to say their work is little more than the beginning of 
what should be done^^. 


* The following list incltides most of the papers on the Geology of 
Vermont which have been published during the last fifteen years : 

Geological Sections Across New Hampshire and Vermont. 0. H. 
Hitchcock, Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. Vol I., p. 
155. 

Notice of Geological Investigations Along the Eastern Shore of 
Lake Champlain. Conducted by Ezra Brainerd and H. M. Seely. B. 
P. Whitfield, Bulletin Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. Vol. I., p. 293. 

The Marble Border of Western New England. Bj’^ Ezra Brainerd 
and H. M. Seely. Proceedings Middlebury Historical Society. Vol. 

I. , Part II. 

The Winooski Marble of Vermont. G. H. Perkins. Am. Naturalist. 
Vol. XIX., p. 128. 

Studies on Cambrian Fauna. C. D. Walcott. Bulletin U. S. Geol. 
Survey, 30. 

'I'he Original Chazy Rocks. E. Brainerd and H. M. Seely. Am. 
Geologist, November, 1888. 

An Account of the Discoveries in Vermont of the Rev. A. Wins 

J. D. Dana. Am. Journal Science and Arts. Third Series, Vol. XIII., 
pp. 332, 495. Vol. XIV., p. 36. 







STATE GEOLOGIST. 


9 


The very great importance of one branch of the geo¬ 
logical work of which I have been writing, that which in¬ 
cludes the deposits of useful and monumental stone and 
the quarries which are located upon them, is best under¬ 
stood, perhaps, when we consider that Vermont, though 
one of the smallest States in extent of surface, yet stands 
first in the value of marble produced, second in slate and 
second in granite, and third in the total of all quarry pro¬ 
ducts, only Pennsylvania and Ohio producing more. The 
total value of all the stone produced in Vermont in 1897 
is, according to data collected by Mr. Perry, $3,598,399. 
The capital invested was, in 1897, over $12,000,000, the ex¬ 
act amount I cannot ascertain, but I am sure that it is 
more than the above named sum. Over five thousand 
men are employed in the 167 quarries, and there are oth¬ 
ers not reported. It is very gratifying to learn from 
nearly all the quarries investigated that the demand for 
Vermont stone is increasing, and also that the supply is 
far from being exhausted. Many deposits have been 
scarcely touched. 

Perhaps it may be well to state that while I shall find 
it convenient, even necessary, to mention certain quarries 
and quarrying firms, this is done in no way to advertise 
them, but only to make known, as best I can, the re- 

The Calciferoiis Formation in the Champlain Valley. Ezra Brainerd 
and H. M. Seely. Bulletin Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. Vol III., p. 1. 

Observations on the Fauna of the Bocks at Fort Cassin, Vt. B. P. 
Whitfield. Bulletin Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. Vol. III., p. 25. 

The Chazy Formation in the Champlain Valley. Ezra Brainerd. 
Bulletin Geological Society of America. Vol. II., p. 293. 

Structure of the Bidge Between the Taconic and Green Mountain 
Banges in Vermont. T. N. Dale. Fourteenth Beport U. S. G. S., p. 
531. 

The Pleistocene History of the Champlain Valley. S. P. Baldwin. 
Am. Geologist. Vol. XIII., p. 170. 

The Chazy of Lake Champlain. Ezra Brainerd and H. M. Seely. 
Bulletin Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. Vol. VIII., p. 305. 

Description of New Species of Silurian Fossils from near Fort Cas¬ 
sin, Vermont, and Elsewhere on Lake Champlain. B. P. Whitfied. 
Bulletin Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. Vol. IX., p. 177. 







10 


BIENXIAl. REPORT OF THE 


sourcevS of the State and what is being done to develop 
them. I greatly regret that the brevity both of the time 
for visiting and studying the quarries, and also for writ¬ 
ing this Report, makes it quite impossible to do justiee to 
many important quarries. One of the many reasons why 
a more eomplete Report should be prepared in the near 
future, is that the deficiencies and unavoidable errors of 
this may be corrected. On this account the State Geol¬ 
ogist will be very glad to receive any information respect¬ 
ing quarries or mines of this State. 

Besides the great quarries of marble, slate and gran¬ 
ite, Vermont has extended limestone quarries, a few of 
soapstone or steatite, one of talc of considerable value, 
beds of ochre, clays of various kinds, as well as mines. 
These lesser but important interests should by no means 
be neglected. A full Report should include them all, but 
for reasons already given they are not included here. 


THE MARBLE INDUSTRY. 

Vermont has long been famous for the quantity and 
quality of the Marble produced. The pre-eminence of 
Vermont in this respect is shown by the fact that in 1890 
the marble obtained from the quarries in the United 
States was valued at $3,488,T20, and of this Vermont pro¬ 
duced $2,109,500, and I presume these relative values 
would not be greatly changed by more recent figures, 
which I am unable to obtain. In absolute quantity. New 
York exceeds Vermont, but much of its product is fitted 
only for use as a building stone, while much of our mar¬ 
ble can be used in statuary and monuments, and therefore 
has a much greater value. No other State, nor the whole 
United States, can at all approach Vermont in the quan¬ 
tity and value of the finest grades of marble. 

By far the largest part of the marble quarried in 
Vermont is obtained in Rutland County, though there are 
a few quarries just south, in Bennington County, and 





\ 

\ 


STATE CEO LOO 1ST. 


11 



Figure 1 Post Office awd Court House, ]Monti>eliek. 
Built of Sutherland Falls Marble. 
























12 


BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE 


north, in iVddison. There are deposits, not now worked, 
in Chittenden, and quarries of the beautiful Champlain 
marbles in Franklin County. There are, in all, between 
thirty and forty quarries, in which are employed over two 
thousand workmen, the Vermont Marble Company alone 
employing I TUO. The deposit of marble, so far as now 
known, begins at the south at Dorset Mountain, and ex¬ 
tends northward, in a narrow belt, through Wallingford, 
West Rutland, Proctor, Pittsford and Brandon, to Middle- 
bury, and there are unworked beds considerably north of 
the latter place. These are true marbles, metamorphosed 
limestones. The marble of Swanton and other localities 
is of different origin, and geologically is not true marble, 
though just as valuable as if it were, possibly more so. As 
has already been noticed, the great advantage which Ver¬ 
mont has over other marble producing States is seen in 
the quality of her marble. Marble good for building is 
found in many localities, but it is worth only from 75 cents 
to $2.00 a cubic foot, while marble suitable for monu¬ 
ments sells at from $5 to $7, and statuary brings $12. As 
the cost of quarrying a block of common building marble 
is the same aS if it were of finer grain, it is obvious that a 
quarry, or deposit of the finer stone is greatly to be de¬ 
sired. Of this finer marble Veimont produces more than 
seven times as much as does any other vState. Neverthe¬ 
less the use and increasing use of marble as a building 
stone is not unimportant, for much of our marble is of 
value chiefly for this purpose, either because of its tex¬ 
ture or color. That marble, especially when “rock¬ 
faced,” is capable of being used as a building stone, with 
good effect, can be easily proved by reference to the U. S. 
government building in Montpelier, a cut of which is, 
through the courtesy of the Montpelier Watehinan, here 
given (Figure 1), as well as a view of the Water Tower at 
Fort Ethan Allen (Figure 2), which, like the building 
mentioned, is of vSutherland Falls marble. This latter 
view was furnished by the Vt. Marble Company. Many 
very fine buildings in various parts of the country are 
constructed of the Rutland marbles. 




Figure 2 . Watek Tower, Fort Ethan Allen 
Eockfaced Sutherland Falls Marble. 













u 


inKXNIAL REPORT OF THE 


Beginning our survey of the Marble region at Dorset, 
we find high up on the sides of Dorset Mountain a group, 
or belt of quarries, some of them not at present worked, 
which are capable of producing a large amount of fine 
marble. The largest and most productive quarry is known 
as Freedly's, carried on, as is the mill at the base of the 
mountain, by Messrs. J. K. Freedly & Sons. This is 
a very interCvSting quarry and one of the oldest, having 
been worked, it is said, since 18U3. It is charmingly 
located on the east side of the mountain about lOOO feet 
above the beautiful valley. Dorset Mountain is capped 
by a mass of slate about 5(M) feet thick, and immediately 
below this is a great mass of marble, which is several 
hundred feet thick in some parts of the bed, though 
much less in other parts. Beneath the marble are great 
beds of limestone. The marble is rather more coarsely 
crystalline than that at West Rutland, and some of the 
layers are rather soft, but most of it is very hard and it is 
said to be durable. In the Freedly quarry the color 
varies from pure white, through several shades, clouded 
and veined, to dark bluish gray. The quarry is partly 
open and partly “tunnel,” that is, the marble has been fol¬ 
lowed under the slate, leaving, as it has been removed, 
cavern-like spaces. This “tunnel” is quite large. I 
should estimate its breath at seven or eight hundred feet, 
depth from one hundred to a hundred and fifty feet, and 
height twenty-five. The massive roof is supported by 
massive columns left for that purpose. The open quarry 
is large and both produce abundance of good stone. From 
the quarry an inclined tramway leads down to the mill, a 
mile or so below. The track is double, so that a loaded 
ear in descending, draws up an empty one on the other 
track. Most of the product of this quarry goes to Phila¬ 
delphia. D-oing south along the east side of the mountain 
we soon reach a large quarry not now worked called the 
“ Blue Ledge.” A very pretty bluish marble is found 
here and the enormous dump heap shows the extent of 
past working. vStill further south is a very promis- 







STATE (;E0L()('.IST. 


1 5 

ing looking quarry, also unworked, called the Folsom 
quarry. There appeared to be an abundance of good 
stone here awaiting the enterprise of some energetic 
quarryman. Going on to the southwest side of the moun¬ 
tain we find the Edison quarry which produces a finely 
veined stone in large blocks, but when sawed the sheets 
are very likely to be unsound. The quarrymen called my 
attention to a curious phenomenon which has also been 
observed in one or two quarries at Pittsford and Brandon. 
i\s the surface of the marble deposit is cleared, channell¬ 
ing machines are run back and forth across it until the bed, 
three, four, six feet deep, as it may happen, is cut into long 
strips, which are then cut across into blocks. In this 
quarry these strips when cut spring up from the bed below, 
so that it is difficult to work, as tools are caught and held. 
One of the northern quarries was abandoned, I was told, 
because of the trouble this springing caused. 

Farther along the wCvSt side of the mountain is a large 
quarry which is just being opened by the Dorset Mountain 
^larble Company. There is here a slendid mass of marble 
of quite varied shading. Borings show a bed of marble 
several hundred feet thick and apparently very sound, but 
as to this onlv trial can determine, for even the most ex- 
pert quarryman is unable to foretell whether blocks that 
seem perfectly sound as they are taken out, will prove so, 
when sawn. A few rods north of this new quarry is an older 
one formerly known as the Prince quarry, but now worked 
by the company just mentioned. Considerable marble has 
been taken from this place and it is still worked. One 
great obstacle which these Dorset Mountain quarries must 
overcome is their distance from railroads. Except the 
Freedly quarry, they must all send the rough stone by 
teams over a difficult mountain road for several miles. It 
is fortunate that the hauling is all down hill, so that large 
loads can be drawn. At the base of the mountain, in 
Dorset, there are several quarries now abandoned. The 
largest of these, and one which was once very actively 






10 


BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE 


worked, is that of Kent & Root. This, with the large mill, 
not far off, now stands deserted and desolate. 

So far as I know, marble was quarried at Dorset before 
it was obtained in any other locality. Says Professor 
Seely in '‘The Marble Border of Western New England,” 
to which I am indebted for numerous valuable .suggestions 
and facts: “The first quarry opened at Dorset was by 
Isaac Underhill in the year 1785 on land owned by Reuben 
Bloomer and still held by the Bloomer family. The quarry 
was first wrought for fire jambs, chimney backs, hearths and 
lintels for the capacious fireplaces of the day. People 
came a hundred miles for these beautiful fireplace stones' 
and considerable trade in them soon sprang up. Other 
quarries were soon in operation and from 1785 to 1841 nine 
quarries were opened.” 

North of Dorset there were formerly quarries in North 
Dorset, Danby and Wallingford, but none of these are now 
worked. Most famous of Vermont marble beds are those 
at West Rutland, and the name Rutland marble is used in 
trade to designate either that from these quarries or from 
Proctor. In this region there are in all about thirty quar¬ 
ries, most of them worked. 

Twenty-five of these are controlled by the Vermont 
Marble Company, which is said to be the largest in the 
world. The West Rutland quarries are in two groups. 
Most of them are on the west side of a north and south 
ridge, extending about half a mile and the stone from these 
is mostly quite light in color, while a mile and a half north 
on the same ridge are two quarries which produce no light 
marble, but a very fine dark stone. There is here a vast 
deposit of unusually sound and desirable stone, and on the 
opposite side of the valley there are other fine deposits not 
worked. The marble is in beds, or layers, which dip to the 
east at varying inclinations from to 80^', the average 
dip being given-as about 45The beds are together from 
50 to over 100 feet thick. The quarries here are really 
great pits. There is a rectangular opening perhaps 200x250 



STATE GEOLOGIST. 


IT 


feet, and the walhs descend vertically, or nearly so, to a 
depth of 200 or in some cases 300 feet. 

The first or “covered quarry” is 300 feet deep, and 
there are two tunnels about 200 feet long, running under 
the cliffs. Blocks of almost any size which can be moved 
by the hoisting machines can be obtained from these quar¬ 
ries. The marble in some quarries varies but little from 
layer to layer, while in others there are several varieties in 
a single layer. Some layers produce pure white statuar}^ 
others most daintily veined or clouded, show a white ground 
variously streaked, blotched or veined with green, in one 
bed, blue in another, yellow or light brown in another, 
olive in another, and it is easily seen that the mixtures and 
relative amount of these veins in the white ground may 
be innumerable. I do not know how many shades are 
recognized in trade, but in the State collection there are 
blocks which represent twenty varieties. It is said that 
in one of the West Rutland quarries there are “fifteen 
different layers varying in thickness from two feet to ten, 
and varying also in color, texture and value.” 

The following section, taken from the Eighteenth An¬ 
nual Report of the U. S. Geological Survey, will aid the 
reader in understanding the .structure of these quarries: 

Blue marble, top > 

White marble ) 

Green striped. 

White statuary. 

Striped monumental. 

White statuary. 

Layer partly green, partly white. 

Green jind white “Brocadillo”. 

Crinkly, silicious layer, half light, half dark 

Light and mottled. 

Green striped. .. 

White. 

Half dark green, half white. 

Italian blue. 

Mottled limestone.. 


.20 

feet 

. 2 

i i 

. 5-6 

(( 

. 2-6 

i i 

.. 3-6 

i i 

. 4 

n 

. 21-3 

i i 

. 2-3 

a 

. 4-6 

( i 


Oi 

6 k 

.. 3-6 

i i 

,.15-20 

ii 


















Figuie.S. ]\Iaiu5Le Mim.s at West Ruteani) 










STATE (;E0L0(;1ST 


19 


P inures 3 and 4 g'ive 
marble mills in which the 


a good view of some of the 
stone is sawed and cut, and 



figure 5 is a rather poor illustration of some of the quar 
ries, which I introduce here because, though not as good 
as could be wished, it gives a better idea than words alone 
of the character of these quarries. I am indebted to the 
Tuttle Company for these illustrations. 





















20 


P.IKXXIAL RKPOR'r OF 'I'HI 



Figure 5. Intekiok of Qfai!KV at West I'iUiland. 

The two northern quarries, the Esperanza, worked by 
the Vermont Marble Company, and the True Blue, worked 
by an independent eompany, are in the same bed of dark, 
riehly veined and elouded marble, which is very effective 
for interior work. It seems to be a compact, hard, and 
durable stone. 


4 


1 























































































































































Figure (i. View fhom the Sutheueand Falls Quauuy, Proctor. 


Going’ around, or over this ridge, we find on its eastern 
slope the old vSiitherland Falls quarry at Proetor. Figure 
6, though not showing the quarry, is taken very near it, 






















''I'l 


mKXXiAL ri:p()rt of the 



I'igure 7. Sutherland Falls Quarry. I’roctor.. 

and shows blocKS taken from it. Throiiorh the eourtesv of 
Mv. vSpear, I am able to give the aceompanying illustra¬ 
tion of this famous quarry, said to be the largest quarry in 
the world. Its impressive proportions do not appear in 
the illustration, whieh, like all those of quarries, fails to 
represent the magnitude of the object. This quarry is 
located in what appears to be a gigantic pocket, or mass of 
marble enclosed in limestone on all sides. An immense 
quantity of marble has been taken from it, and at pre.sent 
















sTA'i'i^: c:e()L()(hst. 




the walls at the highest point must be feet high, and 
the area of the floor is three acres. The beds of marble 
are nearly horizontal, though there is an evident anticlinal 
arrangement. The marble is mostly rather light, though 
the dark “ mourning vein ” is quite dark. These “ mourn¬ 
ing veins” found in this quarry are very fine. The mark¬ 
ings are numerous, almost black, and very wavy. Of this 
Prof. Seely writes in the “ Marble Border ” : “It would be 
interesting to know the origin of these mourning marbles, 
in which the white and black are so curiously mingled. 
The material giving the black appearance is undoubtedly 
carbon, and probably in character approaching the graph¬ 
ite. which marks the coarsely crystalline limestone of the 
Adirondack region. When freely exposed to a high heat 
the dark color disappears, leaving a white line. A con¬ 
jecture might be ventured that the rock was originally of 
different chemical composition in the different parts; in 
the white the oxidation of the carbon was complete during 
metamorphism, wdiile in the dark the oxidation was inter¬ 
fered with. A second conjecture would be that during 
the metamorphism, the particles of carbon moved together 
and became aggregated, as in the Adirondack marble. 
The first suggestion is supported by the actual difference 
in the character of the dark and white portions, the former 
carrying with it insoluble silicious minerals. A further 
thought suggests itself, whether the darkly mottted marbles 
will not be found to be metamorphosed Black River lime¬ 
stone of the New York geologists.” I have already noticed 
that the thickness and extent of the layers in som*e of the 
quarries is such that very large blocks can be obtained. 
Figure 8 shows one of the buildings of Princeton Uni- 
versity, built of vSutherland Falls marble. The columns in 
front of this building are turned from a single block, and 
they are twenty feet long and three feet in diameter at the 
base. One of the large groups of statuary on the Boston 
Post-office is carved from a single block of the same 
marble. In the falls of Otter Creek at Proctor the Ver¬ 
mont Marble Co. have a convenient and most valuable 






Filjure 8. Clio Hall, Puinceton Univeusity Built of Sutherland Falls Marble 






















Figure 9. Falls of Otter Creek, Proctor. 









BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE 




source of power by which to run their milLs, for it is 
obviously cheaper to use water power than steam. These 
falls, which are well shown in the illustration (Figure 9), 
supply from 2,000 to 2,500 horse power. 

Not'th of Proctor, and between that place and Pitts- 
ford, are several quarries, not now worked, and one of 
considerable importance called the “ IMountain Dark,” 
which is in operation. As the name indicates, the marble 
is of dark bluish color. It is, however, troublesome on 
account of frequent flaws. Very much of the marble 
quarried is troublesome and unprofitable on this account, 
and even in the best quarries the waste is considerable. 
As has been seen, the quality of the marble cannot always 
be accurately determined by an inspection of the blocks, 
and therefore it not infrequently happens that an appar 
ently sound block is transported to the mill and sawed 
into slabs before its real character is ascertained. If then 
it be poor, there is not only the loss of the stone, but of 
all the labor which has been expended upon it. Within 
the limits of the marble region it is not difflcult to find 
abundant marble. The main trouble is to find that which 
is sound and perfect when worked. Small specimens are 
of little value as indicating the soundness of larger pieces, 
and no one should be misled by them. Almost any quarry 
will furnish a square foot or so of sound marble, though it 
may never yield any larger pieces. Several miles north of 
the Mcmntain Dark quarry, there are several quarries in 
Pittsford, all producing a dark marble. It is a handsome 
stone, but quite liable to imperfection, though good blocks 
are by no means unattainable. 

Quarrying was carried on in Pittsford quite early, 
not so early as at Dorset. The oldest quarry was opened 
in 1795. According to Professor Seely, in the “Marble 
Border,” there are three beds of marble in Pittsford, ex¬ 
tending north and south. “The most easterly of these 
has a breadth of about 209 feet, and on it was opened, in 
1871, the quarry known as the Central Vermont quarry. 




STATE GEOLOGIST. 



It was successful until the great depression of ISTd, 
from whieh it has not yet rallied. The marble is of the 
same character as that at Proctor, of which bed it is prob¬ 
ably a continuation. The middle bed is separated from this 
easterly one by about 200 feet of lime rock. This bed is 
itself 400 feet wide and contains marble of different 
shades, from pure white to a dark blue. Buildings made 
of this marble have stood the test of years. * * The 

third or west bed, thought to correspond to that of West 
Rutland, is about half a mile Avest of the Central and 
abuts on the west against the slate, this having disap¬ 
peared from all the region east of it. This bed, about 
400 feet wide, holds beautiful dark blue marble, mottled 
and veined.” In this last named bed there are two con¬ 
siderable quarries, the Hendee, worked by the Vt. Marble 
Company, and the Florentine, the stone from which is 
saAved at Beldens Falls. 

North of Pittsford I found no quarries in operation 
until reaehing Brandon, Avhere there are at present two, 
besides several not Avorked. I AAms told that the Corona 
quarry, still farther north, Avas also Avorked. 

About two and a half miles southwest of Brandon 
station is the Bardillo quarry and mill. Here there is a peeu- 
liarly elegant stone, quite unlike any other that I haA^e seen. 
The A^ery numerous, strongly-marked, narrow veins Avhich 
traverse the blocks in sinuous or zigzag lines, in quite 
unique fashion, and yet Avith a eertain regularitAL make this 
a very handsome stone. It varies in shade from light to 
dark gray. The 'quarry is not large, but the supply 
seemed to be good and the beds AAmre thick and solid. 
The quarry was opened, the Avorkmen tell me, in 1882. 
Most of the product is worked up on the spot into monu¬ 
ments. A much older quarry is that known as Brandon 
Italian, Avhieh is nearer tOA\m, being about half a mile be- 
loAv the station. The Bardillo quarry is located on a hill¬ 
side, and the stone is quarried, thus far Avithout going to 
any great depth. This other quarry is much deeper, and 







28 


lUENNIAL REPORT OF THE 


is peculiarly long and narrow. The beds are thick; at 
the time of my visit the channeling machine was cutting 
out a bed (1 ft. 8 in. in thickness. The mill which had 
been operated at the quarry burned last winter and the 
company are building a new one at Middlebury, to which 
place the blocks will hereafter be taken to be worked up. 
This marble is solid, and light colored, that is, white with 
dark veins. 

There were formerly several quarries in Middlebury, 
but none are now worked. I have spoken of the loss 
which always attends marble quarrying, because of the un¬ 
soundness of much that is obtained. Throughout the mar¬ 
ble belt good marble is never found near the surface. 
Hence, when a quarry is opened in a ledge, a greater or 

less, but always considerable, mass of waste stone,, earth, 

* 

etc., must be removed. For this reason everv one Avho 
undertakes to open a quarry must spend a considerable 
sum before he can begin to look for returns. This is Avell 
stated in a pamphlet published by the Vermont Marble 
Company; “A marble deposit being found, it is first 
bored, and with a machine constructed for the purpose, 
a solid core is taken out, from which the quality of the 
marble is easily determined. The soundness, however, 
can only be proved by opening; and the opening of a 
marble quarry, unlike granite, is a laborious and expen- 
sAe operation. From forty to seventy-five thousand dol¬ 
lars has been spent upon several of the West Rutland 
openings before stock that would even pay to saw has been 
taken out. The quarry being .stripped of the top rock, 
channeling machines, driven by power, ’are put on and the 
entire quarry floor cut into strips, a cut being also made 
at each end. Small holes at intervals of a few inches are • 
then bored into the bottom of the layer, by means of ma¬ 
chines constructed for that purpose, and called gadding 
machines, and into these holes are driven iron wedges. 
In this way all of the layer that has been cut is freed from 
its bed, and it is not unusual to see a strip of rock 50 ft. or 
more in length raised in this manner. The layer is then 






STATE GEOLOGIST. 


29 


in the same way broken into blocks of the size desired, 
and the marble is hoisted from the quarry to the bank by 
huge derricks, and if of suitable quality, sent to the mill 
to be sawed.” 

Many interesting questions arise as to the origin, age, 
etc., of the marbles of the region we have been consider¬ 
ing. Only very briefly can these be discussed here. As 
to,the origin of these marbles, not of all those kinds of 
stones sold under the name, but of the marbles in the 
Rutland district, geologists are agreed that they are meta¬ 
morphosed limestone. That is, that the ordinary dark, 
fossiliferous strata, such as we now find at Larrabees 
Point or on Isle la Motte, has been, in the marble region, 
softened, heated, compressed, crystalized until trans¬ 
formed into the non-fossiliferous, light colored marble. As 
to the age of these marbles, we may speak with confidence, 
because of the investigations of a Vermont geologist, who 
is almost unknown in his own State, the Rev. A. Wing 
of Whiting, who died about 20 years ago. Mr. Wing, by 
dint of most careful study of the marbles and ledges of 
Rutland County, established their age beyond doubt as of 
the Chazy limestone, one of the lower members of the 
Ordovician or Lower vSilurian. That is, the marble is of 
the same age as the limestones of the southern portion of 
Isle la Motte, at Fisk’s and Fleury’s quarries. Although 
most of the beds, as those at West Rutland, are of this 
age, it may be that some are older, and ^some, as Prof. 
Seely has suggested, are newer. Chemically, limestone and 
marble do not very widely differ. Lime carbonate is the 
chiet component of each, but there are some important 
differences. In the I8th Annual Report of the United 
States Geological Survey, several analyses of Rutland 
marble are given. A single example must suffice for the 
present: 

Blue Marble. White Marble. 


Silicate of Alumina. 22 .62 

Carbon dioxide. 44.00 43.80 

Lime. S'). 15 54.95 

Mas^nesia.57 .59 









lUENNIAL REPORT OE THE 


W 


The above shows that there is little difference be¬ 
tween the dark and light varieties, in the substances which 
compose them. In the same Report we find the following : 

“Vermont is likely to remain in the first place for 
the production of fine marble for many years to come, in 
spite of claims of superior product which are occasionally 
made in connection with new discoveries elsewhere;’^ 
and also the statement that the “ marble of West Rutland 
and its vicinity is as yet without a peer in the United States 
for the finest uses to which marble is applied, and it sup¬ 
plies a large proportion (elsewhere stated as 81 per cent) 
of the stock msed for cemetery work.” 

Aside from the great quarries and mills with their 
hundreds of workmen and vast output which have been 
mentioned, there are in Vermont other quarries which 
produce marbles of which we may well be proud. The 
marble quarried on Dorset Mountain has much of it been 
taken to Manchester to be worked, hence outside of the 
State it is often called Manchester marble. There is no 
quarry of true marble in Manchester, but there is a quarry 
of breccia, Avhich was sold as marble, but which is no longer 
worked because of its unsoundness. It is a very interesting 
and handsome .stone, quite unlike any other in the State. 
It is composed of fragments, of different sizes, of red, gray, 
white or brown stone, cemented together by a dark red 
material. Were it only sound it would be a very attractive 
stone for interior work. 

What are known as the Champ lain Marbles are quite un¬ 
like any found elsewhere in the United States. They 
differ materially from the true marbles in that they are not 
metamorphic, but are sub.stantiall}" as originally deposited. 
They belong to an older period geologically than the white 
marbles and are much harder. 

All are highly colored and all take a most brilliant 
polish. The prevailing colors are white and various shades 
of red, from dark red-brown to delicate flesh color. Olives- 



STATE GEOLOGIST. 




and light greens are also sometimes seen in eertain layers. 
They belong to a geologieal formation known as the red 
sandrock, whieh is, in age, middle Cambrian. This forma¬ 
tion extends from Canada through northern Vermont south 
as far as Shoreham. It is not of great extent from ea.st to 
west, but forms a narrow band near the shore of Lake 
Champlain and approximately parallel with it. Many of 
the head-lands on the eastern side of the lake are of this rock. 
Most commonly it is a hard, dark red sandstone containing 
besides large percentage of silica, eight or nine per cent of 
potash, about the same of iron, and more or less of lime. 
The composition of the rock is not uniform, but differs 
greatly in different portions even of the same stratum. 

The color, though chiefly dark red, is sometimes light 
red or even reddish-buff. Moreover the entire formation, 
which is about two thousand feet thick, includes limestones,, 
dolomites, slates and shales, though the red sandrock is, in 
most places, by far the most conspicuous member of the 
formation, and forms the greater part of its thickness. 
Still, in some localities other beds make up a not incon¬ 
siderable portion of the whole, as the following section 
taken at Swanton by Sir William Logan, and given here 
wdth some modification, shows: 

Feet. 

1. White and red dolomites (Winooski marble) with sandy layers; 

— some of the strata are mottled, rose red and white, and a few 


are brick red or Indian red. Some of the red beds contain 
Ptycfioparid adamsi and P. valcanus . 870 

2. Gray argillaceous limestone, partly magnesian, holding a great 

abundance of inaipiens . 110 

8. Buff sandy dolomite. 40 

4. Dark gray and bluish-black slate, partially magnesian, with thin 


bands of sandy dolomite. The slate contains fossils as Kator- 
pina cmptilata, Orthisma festinata, Camerella antiquata, 
PtifcJioparidteucer, Olenellus tJiompsoni, Mesonacis vermon- 


taaa . t80* 

5. Bands of Bluish mottled dolomite, mixed with patches of gray 
pure limestone and gray dolomite and bands of gray mica¬ 
ceous flagstone with fucoids. .. .. (30^ 










32 


lUENNIAL REPORT OF THE 


A mile or so north of the above section, other strata 


occur as follows: 

0. Light gray more or less dolomitic sandstones and “some of 
which are fine grained, others are fine conglomerate.” These 
are interstratified with bands of white sandstone.' 630 

7. Bluish thin bedded argillaceous flagstones and slates, contain¬ 

ing Conocephalites arenosus and fucoids. 60 

8. Bluish and yellowish mottled dolomite. 120 

9. Yellowish and yellowish-gray sandy dolomite. 600 


Still further north, on the Canada line, there are addi¬ 
tional strata, though not well exposed, but in general Sir 
William gives them as follows: 

10. Buif and whitish sandy dolomite, holding a great amount of 
black and gray chert in irregular fragments of various sizes up 
to a foot in length and six inches wide. There are also masses 
of white quartz. Thickness (conjectured). 790 

Most of the layers are not fossiliferous, and in few are 
fossils abundant. It may be true that fossils are really 
more common than they seem to be, for they only occur 
as casts, and, with the exception of the Algae, these are 
rarely visible except when the surface of the stone has 
weathered so as to leave them in relief, and of course this 
happens only occasionally. Near Burlington, where the 
vStone is extensively quarried for building purposes, some 
of the layers exhibit abundant casts of Algse, together 
with mud cracks, ripple marks and other evidences of 
shallow water formation. Farther north, at Georgia, and 
vStill more to the north, at Highgate, various trilobites and 
Mollusca have been found of the genera Oleuellus, 
Ptvchoparia, Camerella, Orthisina, Obolella, etc. (see 
No. 4 above). The dolomitic portion of the beds consti¬ 
tute what has long been known as the “ Champlain ” 
marble. 

The beds of “ marble” appear first one or two miles 
north of Burlington and extend in a somewhat interrupted 
series north, through St. Albans and end at Swanton. 
Some of the layers are quite distinct from the red sand- 
rock proper, others pass into it by imperceptible grada¬ 
tions. Ordinarily the marble beds are far less siliceous 








STATE GEOLOGIST. 


33 


than the main bulk of the sandstone, often containing” 
only one-seventh as much silica as that usually contains, 
or even less, but they are always much harder than ordi¬ 
nary marble. Analyses of the marble have been made, 
but cannot be of great value when applied to the whole 
mass, because the relative proportion of the substances 
composing it is extremely variable. 

Identical results would scarcely be obtained from an¬ 
alyses of any two specimens taken at places a little distant 
from each other. Silica is always present, usually about 
ten per cent, lime carbonate forms from thirty to 
forty per cent, and magnesia carbonate about the same, 
while iron and alumina form a smaller portion of the 
mass. 

No fossils had been discovered in this portion of the 
formation until a few years ago, when looking over a pile 
of sawn fragments—refuse from the mill at Swanton—I 
noticed two or three pieces which contained evident fossils. 
These were afterwards identified by Mr. Billings of the Ca¬ 
nadian Geological Survey, as Salterella pulcJiella, described 
by him from the Straits of Belle Isle, and not hitherto known 
from Vermont. It is only with difficulty that this fossil 
can be detected in uncut pieces of marble, but when blocks 
which contain specimens of'it are sawn they are quite 
noticeable, as they are pure white and imbeded in the red 
stone, appear as small thimble-shaped, oval, conical or 
circular bodies, as they are cut in one or another direc¬ 
tion. It seems probable that the Salterella occurs 
throughout the dolomitic beds, for I have found it at their 
extreme limits near Burlington and Swanton. The fossil 
is, however, not common anywhere. It occurs in patches 
sometimes as large as one’s hand, scattered over the slabs 
here and there. Other fossils also occur in marble, but 
are not so well defined as to be certainly identified. 

More than thirty years ago the beauty of the mottled 
dolomite attracted the attention of marble workers, and a 
quarry was opened about six miles from Burlington, and 

(3) 




34 


BIENNIAL REPORT OE THE 


some of the blocks of stone taken’ out were sent to New 
York and Philadelphia to be sawn into slabs and polished. 
The results were, I believe, satisfactory in every way ex¬ 
cept financially. The stone made beautiful slabs for table ' 
tops and mantels, but its hardness, while adding to the 
beauty of the polish which it received, rendered the saw¬ 
ing and finishing so costly that after a short time the at¬ 
tempt to place it in the market was abandoned. 

Quarries were also opened, many years ago, near 
Swan ton, and these are still operated by the Barney Mar¬ 
ble Company. The Swanton quarries are about a mile and 
a half southeast of the village, on the east bank of the 
Mississquoi river. The deposit here is extensive and 
forms a considerable ridge extending along the river, 
from the west side of which the stone is quarried very 
conveniently. The layers dip some 20 to 30 degrees 
to the southeast. The quarries are mainly surface quar¬ 
ries, and thus far the excavation has nowhere been very 
deep. The beds are of good thickness and very fine. 
Sawed blocks can be readily obtained. I measured some 
of these blocks that were lying near the derrick at the 
time of my visit. One was 9 ft. x 4 ft. x 4 ft; another 12 
ft. long and less regular in form. Most of the blocks were 
of the common size found at all the quarries, viz. : 6 ft. 
or 8 ft. long and 4 ft. x 4 ft. at the ends. Blocks 10 feet 
long have been quarried and worked up. Indeed, the ca¬ 
pacity of the derricks and the possibility of handling large 
blocks is all that determines the size of'those quarried. 
All of the stone must be hauled by teams to the mill at 
Swanton, where the fine water power afforded by the 
falls in the Mississquoi, is well utilized by the company. 

This marble has been used in many public buildings 
in different portions of the country, notably in some of the 
corridors at the capitol at Albany, as wainscoting, and also 
in the new wing of the Astor library in New York. It 
should be noticed here that while this marble is unrivaled 
for inside work it is not well adapted to situations in which 







STATE GEOLOGIST. 


35 


it is exposed to the weather, as its colors fade and its 
beauty is greatly impaired when thus exposed. There 
seems to be great inequality in this respect in blocks from 
different layers. At least this is indicated in the appear¬ 
ance of blocks that have been for some years lying about 
the quames. Some of these appear to be but very lit¬ 
tle changed, while others have their surfaces reduced 
to a nearly uniform yellowish-red. No one need fear any 
change in the appearance of polished slabs when protected 
from the inclemency of the weather. 

Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of the 
Champlain marbles is the wonderful variety of shade and 
general appearance which they present. 

Not only may slabs which are quite unlike each other 
be obtained from a block as it is sawn parallel with the 
stratification or transverse to it, any variation in the di¬ 
rection of the saws giving variety in the slabs; but even 
the opposite surfaces of the same slab may differ greatly. 
The rock in some of the layers is a more or less com¬ 
plete breccia, white or light-colored fragments being en- 
clOvSed in a dark red paste. These fragments are of all 
sizes, from those several inches long and wide to those 
no larger than the head of a pin. In some cases several 
adjacent bits were, when first held in the paste^ one large 
piece, and subsequently broken, as the fractured edges of 
each exactly correspond to those of the pieces next it. 
The brecciated structure is conspicuously perfect in some 
blocks and quite imperfect in others, and it finally passes 
into ^yhat was evidently a pasty mass of nearly uniform 
fineness before consolidation took place. Some of the 
beds appear to have been much more thoroughly worked 
over, and the materials more completely ground and 
mixed, than others, and the different varieties are in part 
due to this. 

While but few colors are seen in the different layers, 
nevertheless these are mingled in such varying propor¬ 
tions as to produce unlimited diversity. Shades of red 




BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE 


3f) 


are especially abundant, so that almost every conceivable 
tint is found; less common are green, chiefly in olive 
shades, drab and rarely yellow, all mingled more or less 
abundantly with white, The different specimens may 
conveniently, though without absolute exactness, be ar¬ 
ranged in several series. One of these would embrace 
those slabs in which the red, which in most cases is the 
predominating color, is clear and decided. In this series 
we have many varieties, from those in which the red is 
like that of jasper, or what is known as Indian red, to 
those in which it is simply a delicate pink, like the lining 
of a shell. Another series gives us the red always of a 
brownish or chocolate cast, and this is sometimes very 
dark. This in turn passes through all intermediate shades 
to almost white. In a third series the red shades are less 
conspicuous, and with them are mingled greens and 
greenish-drabs or sometimes lavender shades. It is easy 
to understand how endless variation may be produced by 
varying combinations of these different .shades with white. 
This is true both in the blotched and in the shaded layers. 
Those which show the brecciated structure more or less 
clearly vary as the fragments are large or small, and 
whether many large are mingled with many small or the 
reverse, and whether many large light fragments are 
mixed with dark small ones, or large dark bits with small 
light ones, and in the clouded or shaded layers light bands 
and blotches may predominate in one slab and dark bands 
in another. It will be obvious that no description of such 
marbles can convey to those who have not seen them very 
clear ideas of their appearance. More than thirty varie¬ 
ties of this marble have been named by one company or 
another, but most of these are not used. There are six, 
more commonly placed upon the market by the Barney 
Company, though, of course, others can be supplied if 
desired. 

V 

The Mallett’s Bay beds of this marble, alluded to on 
a previous page, have been repeatedly worked, and some 
fifteen years ago a company called the Wakefield Marble 




STATE GEOLOGIST. 


37 


Company invested eonsiderable capital in quarrying, erec¬ 
tion of mills, and placing the marble on the market. They 
were obliged to use steam power, which was one reason of 
the failure of the undertaking. The hardness of th.e stone 
and consequent slow progress which saws and other tools 
make in working it, render the relative cost of steam and 
water power very unequal. Although this enterpise, so 
thoroughly begun, has not been successful, I cannot believe 
that the great beds of beautifully colored marble which 
exist at Mallett’s Bay are never to yield profit. 

Messrs. Fisk & Bradley have this year opened a new 
quarry in the same formation as that in which the Barney 
quarries are located. A great variety of colors is found 
here and the outlook is very promising. 

There are large beds of a light drab limestone in and 

o c> 

about Swanton and extending south to St. Albans, which 
is extensively quarried and burned to make lime by Messrs. 
J. P. Rich at Swanton and W. B. Fonda at Swanton Junc¬ 
tion, large quantities of lime being produced by these 
gentlemen. But in addition to this use of the stone, large 
blocks are quarried, which are taken to the mill and sawed, 
to be finished as Swanton Dove ” marble. The delicate 
drab of the general mass of the stone is varied by veins of 
pure wTite, thus producing one of the neatest marbles in 
the market. 

Perhaps the most elegant marble which is quarried 
and finished in Vermont is also produced by the Barney 
Company. It is a very fine verde antique, most superbly 
veined in various shades of green, with veins and blotches 
of black and also of pure white. It is very hard, being a 
serpentine, and receives a very high polish. For many 
sorts of interior work nothing can be more effective than 
this verde antique, but it is difficult to work, and for that 
reason is more expensive than any other kind. The quarry 
from which this stone is obtained is at Roxbury. It was 




BIENNIAL REPORT OE THE 


o o 


worked many yearvS ago and some large pieces taken out, 
and then for years it lay deserted, until a vShort time ago 
the Barney Company took it in hand, and have since done 
considerable work in getting out the stone. As now 
opened, the quarry is not a large one. It is located on the 
east side of a considerable hill, about half a mile south of 
the station, near the railroad. So far as developed, the 
the bed of marble, or serpentine, is 12 to 16 feet thick, 
but the bottom has not yet been reached. Immediately 
above the marble is about 26 feet of greenish schist. At 
the north end is a bed of white talc. Green talc, actinolite 
and asbestus are also found in the quarry. Some large 
blocks have been gotten out. I saw at the mill blocks 9 
feet long and three feet square at the ends. Some of 
these are very dark, others quite light. 

In the town of Washington a dark bluish siliceous 
limestone is quarried which, when finished, is very hand¬ 
some. It is peculiar in shading, and in those blocks which 
are abundantly intersected by darker veins is of very vStrik- 
ing appearance. Dr. F. ik. Warner has not only opened 
a quarry, but built a mill in the village, where the stone is 
cut and polished. At the time of my visit, there were 
some beautiful specimens of the marble in various monu¬ 
ments, slabs, etc., at this mill. I am greatly indebted to 
Dr. C. F. Richardson, instructor of geology at Dartmouth 
College, for the following notes concerning this marble 
and the region in which^it occurs. Dr. Richardson has' 
repeatedly and carefully studied the part of the state 
referred to in his notes, and they are especially interesting 
because very little trustworthy information respecting the 
geology of eastern Vermont is to be had: “ The Wash¬ 
ington limestone is, in general, a dark gray, siliceous rock. 
The coloring matter is uneombined carbon. In the south¬ 
ern and western portions the limestone is darker and con¬ 
tains many beds of plumbaginous mica schist. The de¬ 
posits at Wait’s River closely resembles the Columbian 






STATE GEOLOGIST. 


39 


marble of WevSt Rutland, which is of the same age. The 
alternation of light and dark bands of highly crumpled 
strata, together with the beautiful polish which the rock 
receives, makes it eminently suitable for ornamental work. 

At Washington more than twenty quarries have been 
opened since the discovery of the marble five years ago. 
It lies horizontally in sheets fi'om ten to one hundred feet 
in length. Throughout the entire town the formation ex¬ 
ceeds 5,000 feet in depth. The rock hammers white, and 
the polished letters stand out in such bold relief that it is 
legible at a greater distance than the inscription upon any 
granite.” The contrast between hammered and polished 
surfaces is greater than in any stone I have ever seen. 
Chemical analysis of the stone gives most remarkable 
results. It seems like a general mixture of all the reagents 
in a laboratory. 

Dr. Richardson sends in the following analysis of two 
specimens of this marble : 



Sample A. 

Sample B 

Siliofl/ SiG,, . . 

.85.748 

85.748 

Titanic Oxide, TiOg. 

.190 

.189 

Carbon Dioxide, CO 2 . 

.22.860 

22.870 

Ferric Oxide, Fe^Og. 

.010 

.010 

Alumina, AL^Og. 

. 6.118 

6.112 

Ferrous Oxide, FeO. 

.940 

.941 

Glucinum Oxide. GIO. 

.813 

.815 

Manganic Oxide, MnO.. .. 

.076 

.075 

Baric Oxide, BaO... 

.210 

.210 

Calcic Oxide, CaO. 

.27.805 

27.304 

Magnesic Oxide, MgO. 

. 8.248 

3.244 

Sodic Oxide, NogO. 

.186 

.187 

Potassic Oxide, KgO. 

.063 

.064 

Lithic Oxide, LgO. 

.828 

.824 

Water, HgO. 

.108 

.107 

Phosphorous Pentoxide, PgOg. 

. 1.859 

1.859 

Chlorine, Cl. 

.807 

.807 

Fluorine, FI.. 

.026 

.026 

Carbon, microscopic trace. 


.... 


99.885 

99.892 



.079 


99.806 

99.813 




























40 


BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE 


The Washington limestone, like the marble at West 
Rutland, was undoubtedly once regularly stratified, fossilif- 
erous rock, but it has been to a certain extent metamor¬ 
phosed and the fossils obliterated. Dr. Hitchcock has 
found fossils in rock of the same formation at Derby and 
Dr. Richardson in the marble at Wait’s River. Dr. Rich¬ 
ardson writes : “ The most abundant palaeontalogical evi¬ 

dence is in the Canadian territory at Willard’s Mills, Castle 
Brook, Magog, Quebec, where many species of graphtolites ■ 
occur in great abundance. The slates in which they occur 
are lithologically homogeneous with the roofing slates of 
^Montpelier and Northfield. These slates, the Bradford 
schist with its patches of limestone and the Washington 
limestone with its peculiar beds of biotite and plumba¬ 
ginous mica schist, are lower Silurian, and, more specific¬ 
ally, lower Trenton.” These observations are very inter-, 
esting and important, because the rocks involved cover a 
larger area than any formation in the State. They are 
found over much of that portion which lies between the 
Green Mountains and the Connecticut River. 

On Isle la Motte there are extensive beds of limestone, 
some of the layers of which have been used as marble. 
vSome of this is black, some gray, the latter mottled on ac¬ 
count of the presence of numerous small fossils or frag¬ 
ments of large ones. One of the oldest quarries in the 
State is the Fisk quarry, on .the southwest side of the island. 
It is said.to have been opened before the Revolution. It 
i s near the shore of the lake where there is a dock, to which 
a tramway runs from the quarry. The accompanying illus 
tration, furnished by courtesy of The Vermonter (Figure 10), 
gives a fair idea of this quarry. 




STATE GEOLOGIST. 


41 



Figure 10. Fisk’s Dock and Quarry, Chazv Limestone, Isle La Motte. 

An immense quantity of stone has been removed 
from this quarry, for, although the walls are not high, 
I should think nowhere over 20 feet, yet the upper 
layers have been removed over an area of six or seven 
acres, if not more. The strata of Chazy limestone are 
nearly horizontal, the dip being only a few degrees to 
the northwest. The stone is black, or very dark, com¬ 
pact and solid, and has been, as it still is, in demand 
for bridge piers and foundations. The large black blocks 
from some of the layers when sawed make a good black 
marble, which is known in trade as Fisk black. There 
are also gray beds which produce a marble called “ French 
Gray.” This stone was largely used in the piers of the 
























42 


lUEXNIAL REPORT OE THE 


/ 


ofreat Victoria bridi^e. Some of the beds are two feet 
thick, others six, eight or ten. In this quarry fossils 
are not abundant. Most conspicuous are masses of 
stromatocerium. Maclurea magna is also not infrequent, 
and orthocerata and other fossils now and then occur. 
The stone is evidently a deep, still-water deposit, which 
has been to some extent uplifted, but not otherwise 
much disturbed. A short distance southeast of Fisk’s 
quarry is another large one known as h'leury’s. This 
is a lighter colored stone, most of it being gray. The 
strata are not as thick and are more fossiliferous than 
those at Fisk’s, and are somewhat older. They belong 
to the older layers of the Chazy limestone, and are 
near the Calciferous. The layers contain numerous 
brachiopods as orthis, strophomena, camerella, trilo- 
bites as asaphus, cheirurus, and illsenus and some corals. 
There is also a dock and tramway here for loading the 
stone. The strata are somewhat more disturbed than at 
Fisk’s, but the dip is not very great. The whole southern 
end of Isle la Motte is made up of lower and middle Chazy, 
in many places Avholly uncovered or only partly covered by 
a thin layer of glacial drift. Over these nearly level or 
only slightly dipping strata, one may drive for a mile or 
two north to Goodsell’s quarry, on the ea.stern shore of the 
island. The beds here have been worked deeper, so that 
the bottom of the quarry is considerably below the general 
surface, while at Fisk’s or Fleury’s one may drive directly 
from the road into the quarries and over the floor, espec¬ 
ially at Fisk’s. The rock at Goodsell’s quarry is gray, 
with maclurea and stomatocerium, and apparently is 
middle Chazy. A thorough study of the geology of Isle 
la Motte would be to a geologist a most interesting task, 
for it is a region which affords many attractive localities, 
which invite investigation. In a paper published by the 
American Museum of Natural History, Bulletin, Vol. VIII., 
p. 305, President Brainerd and Professor Seely have given 
a brief account of their investigations on the Island. They 
found that the total thickness of the Chazy was 634 feet. 





STATE CKOEOCIS'r. 


48 


At the southern end there is a little Caleiferous rock, and 
in the center are Trenton beds. 

THE SLATE INDUSTRY. 

More than fifty years ago a writer spoke of Vermont 
as “ justly celebrated for its roofing slate," but at that time 
there were apparently few quarries and a not large pro- 
duetion, and yet even then, 1845, some quarries had been 
worked forty years. ‘ In those early days an important 
part of the business of a slate mill was the manufaeture 
of the now obsolete school slate, and, from softer layers 
of slate pencils. 

The great slate region of Vermont is in Rutland 
County, but slate' has been obtained in Northfield and 
Montpelier, and in Benson in considerable quantity, but 
is now quarried only to a small extent. 

In the slate belt of Rutland County there are over sixty 
concerns engaged in the slate business. All of these do 
not own or work quarries, but some operate sev^eral, so 
that it is within bounds to state that between fifty and 
sixty quarries are, or recently have been, worked in this 
one county. It is not easy always to ascertain the precise 
number of quarries in any given vein, for the term is not 
always used with the same meaning. The best definition 
of a slate quarry was given me in the office of Messrs. 
Norton Bros, at Granville. It seems that the common 
lease of a slate quarry includes a strip of land twenty rods 
wide. Therefore, originally a slate quarry must be a 
part of the ledge of this width, and perhaps of the same 
or less length, the width being reckoned along the slate 
ridge. By some of the men, each pit was called a quarry 
and this might do very well were it not for the fact that 
in course of years of quarrying several adjacent pits are 
no longer separated, but, the Avail of stone between ha\-- 
ing been removed, they are continuous. Others consider 
each derrick a quarry and count the quarries by derricks- 







44 


BIENXIAl. RKl’OR'r OF THE 


However Ave may choose to reckon the quarries, no one 
can visit the region from Hydeville through Poultney to 
Pawlet without being convinced that they are very 
numerous. 

This slate belt begins with the Lake Bomoseen 
quarry at Cedar Mountain, six miles north of P^air Haven, 
and extends southward through Poultney and vSouth 
Poultney to Pawlet, a distance of about twenty-five miles. 
Contiguotis to the Vermont region is that of Washington 
County, New York, and the whole is geologically one. 
Most of the offices of the quarries at Pawlet are in Gran¬ 
ville, N. Y., and several of the companies operate quarries 
in both Vermont and New York. 


A few of the quarries are located on the side of a hill 
and are more or less surface quarries, but most are rec- 



Figure 11. Slate Quakries- 



















STATE (;E()L(J(;IST. 


45 


tangular pits. The quarry is begun on top of a ridge and 
the slate followed down at a high angle, or even perpen¬ 
dicular, for one, two, or three hundred feet, the average 
depth being no far from 150 feet. On account of this 





. -r 



i;.. 

.i:. 

^ ■ -v- .a? — m 



m 

HH 

« 

P3 

0 

O' 

w 

H 

m 


t3 

bfi 

. 1-1 

£ 



























46 


HIEXNIAL REPORT OF THE 


character, good views of slate quarries are not easily 
obtained and I am unable to show any that are satisfactory. 

The accompanying illustrations, figure 11, loaned 
by Hon. V. I. vSpear, Secretary of the State Board of Agri¬ 
culture, is about as good as any. This, with the other 
illustration, figure 12, which shows one of the larger quar¬ 
ries at' South Poultney, wdiich The Tuttle Company 
furnished, will help one to some idea of the appearance 
of the slate region, about the quarries. 

The most northern quarry is the Lake Bomoseen, 

six miles north of Fair Haven. It is very near the 

shore of the lake and large pieces of slate ean be 

loaded on boats and thus be transported to the rail- 

_ * 

road or mills at Hydeville. This quarry, whieh pro¬ 
duces a fine purple slate, is a surface quarry, the slate 

* 

being taken from the side hill. Th^ quarry is at some 

t 

distance from any that are now worked, but formerly 
there were extensive quarries and millsat West Cas- 
tleton, a mile or so southwest, but they beeame un¬ 
profitable, and what was a scene of bmsy activity is 
abandoned and desolate. Still farther west and south 
there are several quarries now worked with good promise 
of increasing business. Between these quarries and 
Hydeville is a locality known as Scotch Hill. Here there 
are two quarries of fine purple slate. At the Humphrey 
quarries, or rather at the mills, I saw the finest large 
slabs that I found anywhere. This firm produces only 
large pieces, or what is called ‘ ‘ mill stock.” The adjacent 
quarry, owned and worked by Mr. J. Williams is peculiar 
in that its product is not worked up at all, but is sent in 
the rough to mills at Hydeville. The beds here are very 
thick and of excellent quality. After leaving Scotch Hill 
we find no more quarries until we are beyond Hydeville. 
Here are several large quarries, beginning with that of 
the Blue_ Slate Company. Here some roofing slate, but 
much more “mill stock” is produced. Beyond this 
quarry is a series of large ones extending through 





STATE GEOLOGIST. 


47 


“Hyde’s Patch” towards Poultney. One of these, the 
Eureka, is said to be the largest in the State. North of 
Scotch Hill, there was a quarry known as the Old Harvey, 
in which were beds of what is known as “ Unfadingf 
Green ” slate, and at the Eureka we find the same in 
greater quantity. This seems to be really a green slate 
which keeps its color, for in the piles of waste I could see 
no difference between fragments that had lain a long time 
exposed to sun and storm and those which had only lately 
been thrown out. This Unfading Green is in great de¬ 
mand in England, and I was told at several quarries where 
it is found, that half of what they produce is exported. 
The Eureka quarry produces from 1500 to 1800 squares 
of roofing slate a month. Besides the. green, purple and 
variegated slate is obtained at this quarry. Quite similar 
to the Eureka are two large quarries, one on each side of 
the road to Poultney. These are the Lloyds, and beyond 
this, quarry follows quarry until we reach Poultney, or 
near it, and then there are no more until we reach South 
Poultney, where there is a group of nine or ten large and 
long worked quarries. In these, while the slate is mostly 
of the variety known as “ sea green,” a light green, but not 
unfading, there is also much purple and variegated, and in 
one quarry, Griffith & Nathanaels, there is a bed of very 
dark gray, called in trade “Poultney gray,” which re¬ 
sembles the Maine black slate. At the Auld & Conger 
quarry at this place, several of the original pits have been 
worked into one, very long, narrow and deep. A few 
miles south of these is the largest group of all, I should 
think, called, from a switch and side track from the Dela¬ 
ware & Hudson Railroad to the quarries, the “Switch 
quarries.” Here the quarries follow each other along 
the ridge for about two miles. All are very near the 
New York line, and I believe that most of the offices of 
the various companies are in Granville, N. Y. All of 
these quarries produce only roofing slate, mostly of the 
sea green variety, there being very little purple found in 
any and none at all in most. There are, I judged, about 




48 


BIENNIAL REPORT OE THE 


twenty quarries in operation in this group. The last 
quarry in the group is, as are all the Switch quarries, 
in the town of Pawlet. This is the Rising & Nelson. 
It is on top of a considerable elevation, and is the deepest 
quarry which I saw. The workmen said that its depth 
was 300 feet. The slate here is all sea green, and the 
vast dump heaps indicate long working, and it is probably 
one of the oldest of the quarries. I was obliged to make 
a much more hasty examination of all these quarries than 
was at all desirable. I visited over thirty which were 
being worked, but many important ones were passed by. 
The Hughes and Norton Brothers quarries are large and 
interesting and substantially like those just described. 
During the last few years the market for most kinds of 
slate has been dull and prices low, partly, if not wholly, 
because the great quarries of Pennsylvania, added to those 
of Vermont and New York, overstocked the market and 
thus checked the demand. No other state except Penn¬ 
sylvania produces nearly so much slate as Vermont, but 
that state far exceeds us. Of late, however, the business 
is reviving and the demand increasing. All of the slate 
producers of whom I inquired agreed that their business 
was decidedly improving. This is also shown by the 
opening of new quarries and the investing of new capital. 

It is interesting to note the difference in the color of 
the slate in different quarries, or rather in different parts 
of the slate belt. This has been noticed incidentally 
already, but a review of the whole region will make the 
fact more evident. At the quarry on Lake Bomoseen, at 
Cedar Mountain, there is little else than the purple, which 
occurs there in fine beds, though there is some green. 
vSouth from here, just beyond West Castleton, both purple 
and unfading green are found. Still further south, at 
Scotch Hill, only purple, and although unfading green 
and variegated, that is, purple more or less blotched with 
red, occur in considerable beds at Hydeville and Hyde’s 
Patch, purple is very abundant, and so on to South Poult- 




STATE GEOLOGIST. 


41 ) 


ney, when the sea green becomes more abundant, and 
little purple occurs in most of the quarries, and there is 
the bed of “ Poultney gray” mentioned above, which 
occurs only in one quarry. Beyond South Poultney, in the 
great group of “ Switch quarries,” the slate is almost wholly 
sea green. It may be noticed that the unfading green and 
the sea green, though very similar in color and appearance, 
differ in texture and chemical composition, one, as the 
name rightly indicates, enduring exposure without change, 
the other fading if much exposed. The fine red slate 
which is in constant demand for roofing and which there¬ 
fore brings a much higher price than other colors, is found 
only in Washington County, N. Y. It is exceedingly tan¬ 
talizing to an ardent Vermonter to ride through the slate 
belt and be constantly forced to notice how invariable the 
red beds are on the New York side of the line. For a 
dozen miles or so beds of red .slate occur on the New York 
side, in full view of one standing in Vermont, and time 
and again reaching almost into our vState, but never coming 
quite across the border. It would seem highly probable, 
since this is all one slate region, that at any time beds of 
red slate may be found on our side of the line, but thus 
far all search for them has been in vain. In all the quar¬ 
ries it is necessary to remove not only the glacial drifts 
which covers the whole country, but the upper layers of 
slate are of no value, and it is sometimes necessary to take 
off 20 to 50 feet of these top layers. The blocks of rough 
slate are removed from the beds, so far as poSvSible, by 
wedges and bars. Blasting is, of course, at times neces¬ 
sary, but is resorted to only as a necessity. The blocks 
when detached are hoisted and placed on cars, or wher¬ 
ever they are to be further reduced, by very ingenious and 
specially adapted apparatus, worked by steam power. The 
blocks are often large and maybe very irregular. The beds 
indifferent quarries seemed to me to vary considerably in 
the manner in which they could be broken. Some broke 
into quite regular masses, others only in very irregular 
fashion. If roofing slate is to be manufactured the large 

( 4 ) 





50 


BIENNIAL REPORT OE THE 


blocks are broken into smaller, until those approximating' 
the size of the slate wanted are obtained. Various sizes 
are used, but in most of the quarries I found that .slates 
10x20 inches were most in demand, especially abroad. A 
skilled workman takes one of the blocks and very deftly, 
using a wide chisel and mallet, splits it first into several 
thick slabs and then each of these into the thin slabs, 
which, when trimmed in a machine with a large revolving" 
knife, beeome roofing slate. When, instead of this, ‘‘ mill 
stoek ” is wanted, the process is, naturally, quite different. 
In this case larger blocks are quarried and with eorrespond- 
ing care. These are hoisted and placed upon the bed of a 
sawing machine, where they are eut into regular form. If 
necessary, the surfaces are planed or otherwise smoothed. 
The manufacture of slabs for billiard tables, stair treads, 
platforms, and the like, seems to be limited to compar¬ 
atively few quarries, and chiefly those in northern part of 
the slate belt. Some, as that at Cedar Mountain and those 
on Scotch Hill, produce no roofing slate; others, as the 
Blue Slate Company, produce both roofing slate and mill 
stock, while the series of large quarries at South Poultney 
and Pawlet produce almost wholly the roofing slate. 

At present the annual production of slate in Vermont 
amounts to about $850,000 and from 1,400 to 1,500 men 
are employed. Most of the workmen in the slate quarries 
are Welsh, and some of the owners are also Welshmen. 

Slate has been obtained at Benson, but I was not able 
to visit that locality, and can make no report concerning" 
it. 

The only slate quarry which is now worked in the 
eastern part of the state is at Northfield. In years gone by 
a considerable amount of good slate has been obtained from 
this place, and I see no reason why profitable quarries may 
not be operated here, though before expressing any de¬ 
cided opinion I should wish to examine the ledge mueh 
more carefully than I have thus far been able to do. For¬ 
merly there were four or five quarries, but only one is now 




STATE GEOLOGIST. 


51 


in working order. Thi.s is about two miles southeast of 
the village, and is being vigorously worked by the Dole- 
Brill Slate Co. Unlike the quarries of Rutland County, 
this produces sound stone almost to the surface, so that the 
waste is very little. The slate, like all that of Northfield, 
is of excellent quality—strong, unfading, and of a fine 
dark color like the black Maine slate. The color is not 
like that of any of the slates of Rutland county ex¬ 
cept the Poultney gray of Griffith & Nathanaels, to which 
it is similar, though darker. There seems to be an un¬ 
limited supply of this slate in the ledges about Northfield. 
As we have seen, this slate is lower Silurian in age, as are 
those of Rutland county most probably. 


THE GRANITE INDUSTRY* 

It is but few years since Vermont had any reputation 
as a granite-producing state, although the existence of ex¬ 
tensive granite ledges has been well known ever since the 
state'was settled. In the first Report on the Geology of 
Vermont, which was published in 1845, granite is only in¬ 
cidentally mentioned and not a single quarry is particu¬ 
larly noticed, though there were then a few of no great im¬ 
portance. Probably the largest quarries were then, as 
now, at Barre, for the State House was built in 1837 from 
Barre granite, and this was probably very much the largest 
contract taken by a granite quarry in Vermont until per¬ 
haps ten years ago, when, after slowly increasing for many 
years, the granite business, chiefly at Barre but not wholly, 
suddenly increased to unexpected proportions. 

In 1880 Vermont produced, according to the Census 
Report, 187,140 cubic feet of granite, which was valued at 
$59 675. In 1889 the production was 1,073,586 cubic feet, 
valued at $895,516, and in 1897, according to statistics col¬ 
lected by my predecessor, Mr. G. W. Perry, the granite 
produced by 87 companies was valued at $1,512,543. In 
1880 Vermont ranked thirteenth among granite-producing 





52 


BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE 


vStates; iii’ 1890 our state had advanced to the ninth place, 

in 1896 to the third, only Massachusetts and Maine pro¬ 
ducing more, and in that year the latter .state did not pro¬ 
duce nearly as much as Vermont did last year, and Massa¬ 
chusetts but about 6 per cent. more. As I have no reason 
to think that the output of granite has increased in 
these two states as it has done in our own, I think it safe 
to assume that at present Vermont is at least second in the 
amount of this stone sent out, and that if she is not already 
first, she very soon will be, for there are no signs that our 
granite industry is abating its progrCvSS and development, 
but, on the contrary, new quarries are being opened and old 
ones more actively worked than ever. If the above is true, 
Vermont now leads the country in marble and granite, and 
is second only to Pennsylvania in .slate. 

Granite beds are more Avidelv scattered over the state 
than those of either marble or slate. Marble especially is 
limited to a few comparatively restricted areas. Nearly 
all of the slate, too, is obtained from the quarries of Fair- 
haven, Poultney and Pawlet, though the Northfield de¬ 
posits are considerable, and there are smaller patches in 
other places. The great beds of granite are at Barre and 
AVoodbury, and these I think are parts of the same vast de 
posit and no such deposit is to be found elsewhere in the 
state, if an 5 wvhere in the country.’ Hence these beds will 
always be the most important. Smaller deposits, however, 
exist, and most of them have been worked at one time or 
another. 

These are found at Beebe Plain, Derby, West Con¬ 
cord, Greensboro, Chelsea,Groton, Ryegate, Williamstown, 
Northfield, Bethel, vSodom, Victory, Kirby, Morgan, Nor¬ 
ton Mills, Dummerston, and perhaps elsewhere, and a 
syenite at Windsor. I do not mean that granite is now 
quarried in all these towns, for that is not the case, but it 
exists in all, and has been at one time or other quarried in 
all. So far as I can ascertain, there are about seventy firms 






STATE GEOLOGIST. 


53 


in the state eoncerned with either quarrying’ or manufac¬ 
turing granite, many do both. 

All of our quarries are open, and most, or many, sur¬ 
face quarries. An exposed ledge is attacked and the stone 
removed. Unlike marble and slate, the granite is not un¬ 
sound near the surface, though better at a considerable 
deptli below it. Hence there is little or no waste surface 
material to be removed at greater or less expense. This, 
as well as the nature of the quarries, makes quarrying 
much cheaper in the granite region than it is in either the 
marble or slate belts. I regret that the time which I could 
take for inspecting the granite quarries was so short that I 
cannot hope to do them justice. Many I could not even 

look at, much less examine with the care thev deserve. 

•/ 

Again I must refer to a future report for a more adequate 
treatment of this most important interest. For the present, 
as in the rest of the Report, I can only do so much as has 
been practicable under the peculiar circumstances of my 
appointment. I visited such quarries, I have introduced 
illustrations as could most readily be found. 

Granite is a composite of three common minerals— 
quartz, which is much the same as Hint, feldspar and mica, 
or isinglass. The quartz is usually transparent or glass¬ 
like or it may be white, the feldspar is usually a dull white, 
the mica is generally black. The color, or rather shade, 
of granite is due chiefly to the relative amount of mica 
present. The very light or nearly white granite, like 
Barre white, of which only a small amount is obtained, is 
light because the mica is much of it light colored. Light 
granite of trade is a light gray, the mica not being speci¬ 
ally prominent in the mixture, though abundant. More 
dark mica makes a medium, and much a dark or very dark, 
if the black scales are unusually abundant. This is true 
of Vermont granites which are all gray. I do not know of 
anv red granite in the state. 

As to its origin, granite is probably much of it of vol¬ 
canic or igneous formation. That is, it is molten matter 








54 


BIENNIAL REPORT OE THE 


which has surged up from below the surface in great vol¬ 
ume and cooled, crystallizing during the process. Geolo¬ 
gists are more and more numerously inclining to the 
opinion that a large part of the granites are formed in this 
way. Other granite, which can not be distinguished from 
that of igneous origin, is formed from sedimentary rocks 
by metamorphism in a manner somewhat similar to that 
already noticed in the discussion of the origin of the Rut¬ 
land marbles. I think that we have good reason to believe 
that our Vermont granites, or at any rate those of Barre 
and Woodbury, were formed of this last mentioned pro¬ 
cess, and that these granites are transformed lower Silu¬ 
rian, with perhaps some Cambrian strata. That is, the 
limestones and sandstones of these periods have been 
heated, softened, squeezed and crystallized into the gran¬ 
ites, just as these same strata have, by a variation in the 
process, become the schists and gneiss of the Green Moun¬ 
tains and eastern Vermont. 

It seems probable that both granite and marble will 
be used in increasing quantities as building stones. Gran¬ 
ite, as has been mentioned, is quarried more economically 
and the rough vStone is therefore cheaper than marble. Its 
greater hardness, however, makes it more difficult to work, 
and therefore more expensive in the finished, vSawed and 
polished monument or column than is the softer marble. 
This latter stone is said to be coming into use more and 
more extensively for monuments in the South, where the 
milder climate does not affect it, but in the more severe 
Northern climate granite stands the test better, and is be¬ 
coming increasingly popular for the construction of large 
and costly monuments and mausoleums. 

Moreover, the bright, clear color and enduring quality 
of the Vermont granite are bringing it into favor as never 
before. In several very rigid and thorough comparative 
tests which have been made recently, Vermont granite has 
proved superior to any other tested. Perhaps the increase 
of the granite industry in Vermont is best shown by the 




STATE GEOl.OGIST. 


OS 


facts in regard to the growth of Barre, for there is fio rea¬ 
son to suppose that this, for a Vermont town, phenomenal 
progress, is due to anything else than the development of 
the granite quarries and the money which this has brought 
to the town. In 18so the population of Barre was 
and the property valuation was about ^700,()(»(). In 
the population had inereased to (>,790 and the property 
valuation was $9),o()0,()(M). The population is now esti¬ 
mated at not less than 10 , 000 , and the value of property 
is eonsiderably larger than in 1890, and the past year has 
been one of unusual prosperity. 

For faets regarding the granite works at Barre I am 
indebted to quite a number of residents of that plaee, but 
espeeially to the Barre Enterprise and to Mr. W. C. Olds. 
The latter has been at eonsiderable trouble to look up 
statistics. He considers the present value of the annual 
output in these quarries to be not less than $1,000,(mm), 
taken as it leaves the quarry, unworked. Just hoAv many 
quarries there are at Graniteville and the neighborhood, 
four miles east of Barre, I cannot ascertain, but there must 
be between fifty and sixty. About 1 on derricks are in use, 
and 2,000 men, mostly Scotehmen, with a few Italians, are 
employed in the quarries and finishing shops, or “stone 
sheds,” as they are locally called. 

I have already spoken of the fitness of Barre granite 
for use either as a building stone or for the most costly 
monument. That this fact is appreciated all over the 
country is well shown by the following facts. This gran¬ 
ite was used in the construetion of the Grant monument 
in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Many of the finest soldiers’ 
monuments have been made of Barre granite: Of the 
same material are made the Leland Stanford mausoleum at 
Palo Alto, which cost $100,000; the Goodrich monument 
in Rose Hill Cemetery, Chicago, costing $85,000; the 
great crucifix, said to be the largest ever made, at the en¬ 
trance to Pine Hill Cemetery, Buffalo. These, and the 
list might be indefinitely extended, are eonstant witnesses 
to the beauty and excellence of the Vermont granite. 









BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE 


of) 



Figui’e 13. Surface Quarry, E. L. Tayntor it Co., Barre. 


Granite has long been quarried in this region. Ac¬ 
cording to an article in the illustrated edition of the Enter¬ 
prise, one Robert Parker, a revolutionary soldier, first 
opened a quarry, but not until 1875, when Barre was con¬ 
nected by a branch line with the Central Vermont Rail¬ 
road, was anv extensive work done. So far as I am aware, 
the hrst building of importance to be constructed of Barre 
granite was the State House, built in 1887. The stone for 
this was delivered in Montpelier for twenty cents a cubic 
foot, while to-day the same sells at the quarry for from 
seventy-five cents to ^1.00 a foot. From a few tons annu¬ 
ally, the amount produced has grown, as we have seen, to 
large proportions. A single firm shipped in 1890 10,0(i() 
tons, and 1,000 tons have been sent over the road from 
the quarries to Barre in a single day and 100,000 tons in a 
year. It is stated that if all the buildings and yards used 
in and about Barre for cutting and nolishing granite were 
combined thev would cover fiftv acres. The actual tend- 




































































































58 


lUKXMAL Kl'XHJRT OF TIIF 


tory in which the quarries ai'e located is not large. Mr. 
Olds writes; “ The quarries are ad within a radius of less 
than a mile, and certainly not more than five per eent. of 
the area within this radius is quarry land.” The accom¬ 
panying views of granite quarries will aid the reader in 
understanding the conditions of the region and its quarries. 

Figure Id, which was loaned by Hon. V. I. Spear, 
secretary of the Board of Agriculture, shows very well 
two of the quarries, a large block on the truck, a method 
of transportation still in use to a considerable extent, for, 
notwithstanding the existenee of a railroad from Barre to 
the quarries, built by some of the granite eompanies at a 
cost of $240,000, a great many tons are drawn by teams. 
In the upper right hand corner of this figure is a very good 
illustration of some of the “.stone sheds” in which the 
rough granite is cut, carved or polished. Figure 15 shows 
one of the larger surface quarries. For this I am indebted 
to the Montpelier Watc/uuan. 

I^Iany quarries are like this, others are deeper,' though 
none go down very far. One of these large quarries is 
said to be sixty-five rods long and sixteen rods in average 
Avidth, and co\-ers eight acres. Figures 1(1 and IT show 
two of the quarries of E. L. vSmith & Co., by whom the 
blocks Avere loaned. 

Figure 10 shows unusually Avell Avhat is also shown 
in the quarry of Milne & Wylie in figure 14, namely, 
the very thick bed of stone found in some of the quarries. 
Figure IT shows one of the quarries of C. E. Tayntor & 
Co., by Avhom the block was loaned. There seems to 
be no limit to the size of bloeks which may be quarried 
from these beds, except the eapacity ofthe derricks, and 
some of these are of great size. FigurelS show's a steel 
derrick in one of the Tayntor quarries, Avhich is said 
to be one of the largest ever made. It is ninetv-nine 
■•feet high, wdth a boom that has a SAA'eep of seA'enty- 
seA'en feet. It is rated at sixty tons, but the OAvners 
claim that it will raise more than this. A mile of Avire 




STATE geolck;ist 


59 



r 


[ 


AKKY. Wholly a buuFACE Quakky 


























































































































































































































































































































































































































































BIEXXIAI. REPORT ‘OE THE 


no 



Figure 16 . Thickbedded Quarry. E. L. Smith & Co., Barre. 

rope is used in connection with this great derrick. There 

are others of nearly equal size in other quarries. With 
the aid of these and other appliances for moving great 
masses of stone and special cars for their transportation 
to distant cities some very large blocks have been sent out. 
One of the pieces in the Leland Stanford mausoleum 
weighed, when finished, fifty tons. The block from which 
the crucifix mentioned above was carved weighed, in the 
rough, 100 tons. Another monument, though not all in 
one block, weighed 210 tons. The largest single piece 
which had ever been quarried at Barre before this season 
is shown in Figure 19. 

This was from the Tayntor quarry, and was, in the 
rough, 51 feetxl: feet x feet, and weighed 150,000 pounds. 
It was worked into a shaft which is now in Greenwood. 
Another block nearly as large was quarried by Barclay 
Brothers, and is shown in Figure 2(>. This was dC) feet x 















s'l’A I'K (;k()L()(;ist. 


(U 



4 feet X 4 feet. Figure 21 showed a single block which 
weighed forty-six tons. 

A shaft larger than any mentioned was quarried this 
summer by Wetmore & jMorse Co. 


Figure 17. Dark Oranitk (Quarry, E. T>. Smith, Barrk. 
















lUENNIAL REPORT OF THE 





Figure 18. Steel Derrick, Tayntor & Co., Barre. 


About twenty miles north of the Barre granite beds 
are those of Woodbury. The beds here form a small 

m/ 

mountain, and are, therefore, enormous in quantity. Mo.st 
of the works where the stone is eut and po lished are at 
Hardwick, six miles west, or between Hardwick and 
Woodbury. On this account the stone is often called 































































































s rATK (:koi/)gi ^ r. 


(‘)8 



Hardwick granite. I was able to visit only two of the 
six quarries in operation, and these 1 examined less 
carefully than 1 wished to do. 1 am indebted to Mr. E. 
R. Fletcher for facts concerning this granite region. 
The quarries here were opened only ten years ago, and 
therefore the industry is not yet greatly developed. 
There are at present 220 men employed in the six 
quarries and probably a much larger number in the 






















Figure 520 . SH.\rT Fokty-six Feet long Quarried by' Barcl.yy Brothers, IV\rre. 

























s'l'A'i'K (iiv)! o(::s'r 


i)5 



Fignie 2 \. Fninv-s.x 'I'ox Bi.o k, IF^kuk (Iuamte. 


(•'5) 






















I5IEXXIAL RKFAjRT OF 'I’HF 


Of; 


“ stone sheds.” Al)out ;iBo<»0,00f> worth of granite will be 
produeed the present year. The stone lies in great sheets 
in the Fletcher quarry, and the layers are nearly horizon¬ 
tal and are very easily removed, and the blocks are raised 
by derricks, which swing them around on to cars standing 
on a track which runs by the quarry, for a railroad has 
been built from below Hardwick, where it reaches the 
track of the Portland 8z Ogdensburg to and among some 
of the quarries. 



Figure 22 . Quarry of the Woodbury Granite Company, Woodbury. 

At the foot of the mountain and below the Fletcher 
quarry, which is near the top, is the quarry of the Wood¬ 
bury Granite Company, a small illustration of which is 
given in Figure 22. I could not make any comparative 
tests, but I could not see much difference between this 
granite and that at Barre, and, as I have already in¬ 
timated, I regard these beds as of the same general mass. 
The Hardwick granite has been subjected to very severe 
Government tests this season, and has proved superior 
to others tested at the same time, and, as a result, the 
granite for the monument to General Sherman is to 
come from Woodbury. 

At Ryegate the Blue Mountain Granite Company are 
working a small quarry and are about to open a new one 
in Tapham, just beyond the Groton line. Other quarries 
and works are reported as not running. 













STATIC GEOL()(;i:n\ 


67 


There is an important quarry in the southern part of 
the state at Dummerston, carried on by the G. E. Lyon 
Granite Company of Brattleboro. The stone produced by 
this quarry is of two kinds, a light and a dark, both of 
good quality. Figure 28 gives a rather meagre idea of this 
quarry. 



Figure 23. Quarry of G. E. Lyon Co., West Dummerston. 

There were taken out there during the past season 
147 blocks of granite, each 7 ft. x 5, 7 ft. x 3 ft., to 
be used in constructing the great dam at Holyoke, Mass. 
The granite from this quarry is especially good for paving 
streets, as it does not wear smooth. Mr. F. G. Rogers 
writes of this quarry: “Our quarry is a sheet quarry, 
operated at present by an overhead cable, capable of hand¬ 
ling twenty tons per load and conveying ordinary sizes of 
stone at the rate of 600 tons per day. It is 1,500 feet long 
and is elevated by two towers, one 104 feet high and an¬ 
other fifty feet high. An average of 180 men have been 
employed during the past season, and we have orders to 
ast nearly, if not quite, through another .season.” 

What is called “ Ascutney granite” has been quarried 
at Windsor. This is really not a granite, but a syenite, 
which is much that is called granite in trade. The mica 
of granite is replaced by hornblende. The stone is very 


















08 


BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE 


hard, darker colored than any of our granites, and I doubt 
not durable. 

I have already expressed my belief that Vermont has 
much prosperity before her if she will only make the most 
of her best resources, as .seen in marble, slate and granite 
quarries. A correspondent who is in the best possible 
position to know, writes: “ The granite industry in Ver¬ 
mont is only in its infancy, and the time is not far distant 
when Vermont will lead the world in the production of 
fine granite. The importance of the industry and the 
value of these deposits within the state have been ignored 
most by the people of Vermont. Foreigners and foreign 
capital have done the developing mostly.” The sinews of 
quarrying are the same as the sinews of war. Money, 
capital, this is what the quarry interests of Vermont most 
need. After a quarry is well under way money begins to 
return, as the history of Barre well proves, but no success¬ 
ful quarry can be put in operation without large, and, at 
first, unremunerative outlay. The one most uniform ex¬ 
pression of need that I heard at many quarries was that of 
more capital, and it was a call often well warranted by 
the condition of the quarries. There are quarries which 
would swallow up all capital invested as completely as if 
it were cast into the sea, but there are others which, if 
they could be further developed, would yield a much 
greater profit than at present. 

Undoubtedly, here, as elsewhere, money will be lost 
and hopes disappointed because of the failure of what 
seemed promising quarries. Caution is well everywhere, 
but I think it is especially necessary, if one is to eseape 
disaster, when investing in quarries or mines. Neverthe¬ 
less, I believe that much wealth is to come to Vermont 
through the further development of her quarries, and 
that many profitable investments will be made. A well 
planned survey is only preliminary to investment, it is 
true, but it is a most important preliminary, and one that 
may prevent much financial loss, if it does not, as it 
may, secure financial gain. 





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